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Figment
Figment is the beloved purple dragon that is featured in all the various versions of the Epcot attraction Journey Into Imagination. He also appeared in several EPCOT Educational Films made for schools and has a 5-issue comic book series by Marvel Comics. Figment's description theme can considered in the song "One Little Spark". Background In the original version of the ride, he acts as a young and curious student of the imagination to Dreamfinder. In the current version, he is well aware of what imagination is and is mostly a prankster, pulling tricks on Dr. Nigel Channing until he is willing to listen to him and his lesson that imagination works best when set free. Epcot Educational Films Appearances *Would You Eat a Blue Potato? *What Can You See By Looking? *Do Dragons Dream? *How Does it Feel to be an Elephant? *How Does it feel to Fly? *How Does Sound Sound? *What’s an Abra Without a Cadabra? *Reading Magic with Figment and Peter Pan *Reading Magic with Figment and Alice in Wonderland Disney Kingdoms: Figment In his Disney Kingdoms appearance, Figment is introduced as having been Blairion Mercurial's childhood imaginary friend. His testing of the Mesmonic Spark Convertor results in him being brought to life from those childhood memories. However, with Blair's position at the academy being threatened by a lack of results in researching new energy sources and Figment not being an ideal thing to present, Blair decides to keep him a secret and the two keep working on the machine. Eventually, this results in the creation of a portal into an entire realm of Imagination, which the two are sucked into. After befriending a large beast known as the Chimera, being captured by the Sound Sprites and escaping with a misfit known as Fye the Flawed, the friends become trapped in a realm known as the Nightmare Nation. After becoming separated, the Nightmare Nation hivemind breaks his optimistic spirit and disembodies him after declaring that Blair doesn't believe in anything anymore. Figment's spark survives and descends down to find Blair and gives him the boost to start believing in himself again, turning him into the Dreamfinder. Dreamfinder uses his newfound courage to blast a path through the Nightmare Nation with the power of light and open a portal back to London and the academy. However, they find that the city is overrun by the Singular and his robot army, which were unleashed by Chairman Illocrant's attempts to stop the unstable portal with a demand for order. Dreamfinder creates his iconic blimp vehicle to fight this army, but eventually, Figment and Dreamfinder have to trap the Singular and his robots with another portal, though the energy drags them in with them. While Illocrant, Fye and the Chimera stay in London to honor Dreamfinder's sacrifice and have the Academy move in a more creative direction, Figment and Dreamfinder have emerged on the other side flying over a lush landscape with Spaceship Earth rising over the horizon. Behind the Scenes The Journey Into Imagination pavilion, was one of the last of the original Epcot pavilions to be designed. Looking for host characters, inspiration was taken from the mothballed Discovery Bay project for Disneyland. An attraction called "Professor Marvel's House of Illusions" was to have been hosted by the titular eccentric scientist, who among his other endeavors, bred dragons as a hobby. The Professor and one of his smaller dragons would soon evolve into Dreamfinder and Figment. Figment was also inspired by a line in an episode of Magnum PI. In the episode, Higgins' garden was being destroyed by a goat Magnum hid in his backyard. When Magnum tells Higgins it's only a Figment of his Imagination, he replies that "Figments don't eat grass!". Realizing that a Figment of the imagination had never really been visualized, the dragon was given his name. During most of the development, Figment was green rather than his familiar purple pigment. At the insistence of Kodak, who thought the green was too reminiscent of business rival FujiFilm, the color was changed to how he is seen today. Gallery Trivia *In the live-action 101 Dalmatians, a plush Figment can be seen on top of one of Roger's computer screens. *In Inside Out, a portrait of Figment can be seen when the train arrives in Imagination Land. External links *Wikipedia: Figment Category:Theme park characters Category:Dragons Category:Characters Category:Disney characters Category:Characters in Disney parks Category:Males Category:Singing Characters Category:Magic Users Category:Anthropomorphic characters Category:Iconic characters Category:Characters who fly Category:Mascots Category:Heroes Category:Disney Kingdoms characters Category:Animated characters Category:Wise Characters